AeroMat Home      Exposition      To Register      ASM Homepage
Back to "Session 1: Engineered Residual Stresses" Search
  Back to "Welding and Joining" Search  Back to Main Search

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 8:30 AM
WAJ1.1

High Throughput Production Laser Peening: A Very Successful Technology Transfer

L. Hackel, Metal Improvement Co., LLC, Livermore, CA; C. B. Dane, Metal Improvement Company, Livermore, CA

A high performance laser and optics technology developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been jointly developed through funding provided by the Metal Improvement Company (MIC) and transferred into a high throughput, reliable production laser peening capability. Laser peening creates a shock induced residual compressive stress that extends 5 to 10 times deeper into the surface than more conventional techniques. This deeper level of stress provides enhanced resistance to crack growth and leads to improved fatigue lifetime of 5x to 10x and greater. The laser technology used in the MIC/LLNL process produces pulses at 5 Hz, which is up to 10x faster than comparable systems. In the past 18 months, 4 laser peening systems have been built by MIC and put into production in the US and UK. These systems operate with robotic parts manipulation and measurement of processing parameters on every laser shot. Reliability is demonstrated by continuous 3-shift operation with ~500k processing shots per week from each system. To date over 6000 Ti6Al4V aerospace components valued at over $350M have been laser peened and put into commercial operation. Fatigue testing indicates that these components will attain over 10x fatigue lifetime enhancement due to the laser processing. The process is amenable to a broad range of shop and field application on aero engines and structures.